Long Beach City College acknowledged and awarded five students in receiving the highest award labeled the “Viking Award” and celebrated with drinks, food, and cake in the Valhalla room in building E on Nov 29.
The Viking Awards have been given for the past 20 years and this year, about six to ten students were awarded throughout the fall and spring semesters.
2018 LBCC Viking of the Year award recipients.
Students usually receive prior awards to receiving the Viking Award such as Crystal Award, Student Life Award, and soon leading up to the Viking Award.
If a student does not receive a prior award, it is unlikely to receive the Viking Award.
Outgoing Dean of Student Affairs Roman Knox, hosted the event ceremony along with ASB members. Knox surprised five students with the VIking Award that they were not expecting.
“They are students who put in a lot of effort in their studies and on top of that they are engaging with the community, and being social. That’s what this is all about,” said Knox. “These students deserve to be acknowledged.”
An announcement was given for students, staff, and faculty to vote who they want to see in receiving the award. Students can also nominate themselves.
Student Lara Meintgs has been at LBCC since 2013. Meintgs was surprised that she would be recognized with the Viking award.
“I thank LBCC for giving me a time on how to use my voice, and my work for the past five years has finally paid off,” said Meintgs. “This is a very memorable moment for me.”
Student, Jaren Leary will use this award to benefit his career as he wants to come back and be a professor at LBCC.
“This award will look amazing on resumes and it makes me proud to be a viking and want to come back at teach here,” said Leary.
In the spring semester, more students will be acknowledged for their talents at LBCC as they are honored during the fall as well as spring semesters every year.
Correction: December 8, 2018 4:35 a.m. A correction was made to a detail in the first paragraph to properly reflect the number of times May-Treanor won a gold medal in the Olympics.
After retiring in 2012, and getting inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2016, three time Olympic gold medalist Misty May-Treanor decided to share her knowledge of volleyball by joining Long Beach City College as the directory of volleyball operations.
Ever since May-Treanor first joined the Vikings, she always had her eyes on improving the volleyball program and recently had a dominating season as coach of the women’s team, earning a record of 22-4 in 2018.
“I knew people who were from Long Beach and went to LBCC and then they transferred to a four year university. My goal was to put this program back the map because I knew it has been in a hole and that’s what the challenge is,” said May-Treanor.
There are players who came from Riverside just to be on her team.
Abeni Williams is an example of that, “I came from RCC (Riverside Community College) and I’m a big fan! Misty as a coach is very helpful and it is an honor for her to be my coach,” said Williams.
Williams believes that May-Treanor can get her to a bigger school for volleyball.
“My goal in volleyball is to get better and hopefully play for a bigger school, I believe that Misty will get me there,” said Williams.
May-Treanor finds coaching for LBCC to be rewarding but also bitter sweet at times during the seasons.
“It’s frustrating that they we only have them for two years, but the rewarding part is that we can see them off to a bigger college or just see that they”ve bettered themselves. I wouldn’t had taken this job if it wasn’t rewarding,” said May-Treanor.
May-Treanor-Treanor grew up in Santa Monica and attended Newport Beach High School where she was was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2014.
Butch May, May-Treanor’s father, was a volleyball Olympian in the 1968 Olympics and her mother, Barbara May, was a tennis player.
May helped her throughout her volleyball career, not by being controlling, but rather assisting her in the right direction, “I just tried to make sure she didn’t play the game wrong,” said May.
May-Treanor has always been a resilient athlete who never gave up at any cost.
In late 2008 May-Treanor ruptured her achilles tendon while practicing for Dancing with the Stars, which kept her out of competition for about a year, but she was still able to bounce back and in her last Olympics at London, she was able to take home her third Olympic gold medal.
The biggest adversities May-Treanor has ever had to overcome were her injuries in her professional career and her mother passing away due to cancer in 2002, “It made me stronger, and more hungry to keep moving forward,” said May-Treanor-Treanor.
According to her father, for the 2004, 2008, and 2012 Olympics, May-Treanor spread her mother’s ashes on the court so it would be like she was playing on sacred ground.
Her father also said of her that May-Treanor has always had a soft spot in her heart for inspiring people who are disabled, “Along the way she met people who were physically broken, she gave her gold medal to a disabled kid after she won the Olympics,” said May.
May-Treanor’s husband, Matt Treanor, felt like she taught him a lot about being an athlete, “She taught me a lot, it’s great when you can talk to somebody who knows the life of an athlete and understands the grind,” said Treanor.
Treanor returns the favor to May-Treanor at home by helping out with their three daughters when she is at practice.
“We are a team and we live off of coffee,” said Treanor.
May-Treanor will return next semester to lead the volleyball program for its spring competitions.
Long Beach City College’s own Chris Oeding was honored for Coach of the Year, while student along athletes.
The students were awarded with All-Conference postseason honors by the South Coast Conference for the 2018-2019 seasons.
Oeding was awarded with the SCC Coach of the Year award for his men’s water polo record of 19-9 and his women’s record of 17-11.
“It really is just a reflection on the teams and the players,” Coach Oeding said when talking about the award.
Oeding spoke about the number of athletes from his team that were honored.
“We’re 11 people on the roaster, 9 of them are freshman, and for them to be able to come in and meld together as a team the way they did was a testament to their efforts that they put in.”
The Athletic Director Randy Totorp “It’s very easy to look over the aquatics because of how often they receive awards, but it truly it incredible to see what they accomplish,” said the Athletic Director Randy Totorp.
In regards to his success this season with the women’s water polo team, Oeding said, “We’re 11 people on the roaster, 9 of them are freshman, and for them to be able to come in and meld together as a team the way they did was a testament to their efforts that they put in.”
Multiple players in sports such as football, women’s and men’s water polo, and women’s volleyball were all aslo honored.
The football players who were honored were Divine Obichere, Pierre Robinson, Jack Genova, Teshawn White, Cross Poyer, Jeremiah Paulo, Jonathan Murphy, Noah Bias, Jeremiah Houston, Steven Almada, Sebastian Hernandez and Patrick Lee. Students that earned honorable mentions were Jonathan Bonds, Ahmir Wilson, and Jordan Yancy.
Women’s water polo players who were honored for first team were Alejandra Villa, Sydney Brightenburg, Cam Rosas, Samantha Martinez, and Madison Hinojosa, along with second team honorees Harlie Whelan and Karissa Qualley.
Stand out athlete Alejandra Villa, was also awarded with All-SCC MVP of the 2018 season from her performance this season.
Men’s water polo players included Karlo Krmek, Felipe Carsalade, Kobe Jackson, Hugo Roscio, Ivan Mercep were honored for the first team and Fabio Mujica and Aleksa Vucurovic were honored for the second team.
Krmek was also given the All-SCC MVP honors as well.
Women’s volleyball honored a total of four first team All-Conference players, Elsa Woods, Tylie Johnson, Jessica Blakeman and Levila Iosua, and the second team honorees were Kaitlyn Peterson and Sierra Davis.
Coach May-Treanor, a three time gold Olympic medalist and third year volleyball head coach, was also honored with the SCC Co-Coach of the year for the second year in a row for her assistance in leading the vikings to a 22 – 4 overall season.
For the upcoming spring 2019 semester, Los Angeles City College is implementing guaranteed classes, a new formula to increase enrollment and graduation rates.
A presentation was held at Long Beach City College about this formula, and it may be coming to LBCC in the future.
According to LBCC’s Dean of Academic Services Michelle Grimes-Hillman, who put together the presentation, the formula took three years to form for LACC.
According to LACC’s website, guaranteed classes are classes that cannot be cancelled by anybody during the semester.
Long Beach City College will not know if this formula is successful for LACC until the end of the spring 2019 semester.
According to Grimes-Hillman, there has been many conversations at LBCC about making scheduling for students easier, and this formula may be an option.
“Long Beach City College is not guaranteeing anybody that this formula will come to LBCC in the future, the success rate of this formula is something we want to see,” said Grimes-Hillman.
LACC is the first college to implement this type of formula for students.
One of the reasons that LACC is doing this, is that they know when students cancel a class, they usually cancel other classes as well.
According to the Vice President of Academic Affairs at LACC Dan Walden, who gave the presentation at LBCC, guaranteed classes will make students regain confidence as well as make their moral to go up because less stress will be involved.
The LBCC Dean of Language Arts and Communication Studies Lee Douglas, who attended the presentation as well, can potentially see this formula implemented at LBCC in the future.
“Long Beach City College is always looking into new ways to improve the college, and enrollment and graduation rates is very important to us,” said Douglas.
According to Douglas, if there is a low enrollment in a guaranteed class, the college would not make any revenue on this formula.
LBCC English professor Jessica Heffner has had a number of classes cancelled due to low enrollment, but also sees low enrollment as an opportunity to be more effective with her students.
“Classes with low enrollment will work from the perspective of the professor. I prefer to have smaller classes because I can spend more time working with students individually which is a much more impactful way to help students improve their writing,” said Heffner.
LBCC is still only looking into implementing guaranteed classes and has yet to come to a decision.
Campus police responded to a call on Nov. 29 regarding a homeless woman who entered the cafeteria, grabbed some food items, was unable to pay for them, and then sat down to eat.
The woman initially attempted to pay for the food with some sort of payment card, but she refused to let anyone else touch the form of payment, and when they allowed her to swipe it herself, the payment did not go through.
After the woman sat down, cafeteria manager David McDonald pulled her to the side to discuss her ability to pay for the items, but quickly discovered that there might be additional contributing factors to her situation, specifically that he believed she may be suffering from a mental illness.
“It’s a difficult situation,” said McDonald. “I wasn’t quite sure how to handle it, but once it became apparent that there were some mental health issues, I decided to place a call, not to the fire department, or 911, but to the non-emergency line of the police.”
In addition to her interaction with McDonald, the homeless woman received help from a couple of bystanders, an unnamed staff member who paid for her food, and an unnamed employee in the cafeteria who offered her addition money to help.
“I try to help out whenever I can, whether it’s a person in that situation, or a student,” said the cafeteria worker who has chosen to go by “Pete”.
Campus police responded as the person was walking out of the cafeteria, and upon speaking to her, they called what is known as MET (mental evaluation team) team.
LBPD has two MET teams which include an officer and a certified mental health worker, and one of the teams is usually dispatched in situations concerning anyone who may have mental health as being a factor in their contact with the police.
After speaking with the woman for a short period of time, the decision was made not to arrest the woman.
Instead, she was taken to a facility in downtown Long Beach known as MHA Village, or Mental Health Awareness Los Angeles.
According to the MHA Village website their mission is to serve adults who have mental health diagnosis, who may be struggling with financial sustainability.
One of the officers who responded to the call, officer Nicholas Harris, spoke to the Viking about the policy of the Long Beach Police Department when dealing with homeless people who may have mental health issues.
“Our main goal is to get them help. For a person like that, jail is just a revolving door, but we want to try to solve the problem for the long run,” said Harris.
Harris finished by pointing out that it’s not a crime to be homeless or mentally ill.
During the fall semester of 2019, LBCC students have the opportunity to be involved in the new Trades and Industrial Technology Department.
Gene Carbonaro, Dean of Career Technical Education, and Anthony Pagan, Associate Dean of Career Technical Education, worked with department faculty members to give students a new and improved curriculum.
“With the new curriculum we are providing students with 21st century skills to make them college and career ready. A lot of the courses that we offer lead to industry certifications so that’s another benefit to the students,” Pagan said.
With the new curriculum for the department, students will be able to learn new skills with the most up to date equipment.
“A lot of the remaining programs with exception of only a couple were very old technology. It was stuff that nobody is doing now, so what we did was we revamped everything. We are getting all new equipment. We are getting all new tools,” Carbonaro said.
Students at II building of the PCC operate machines to craft metal boxes as class assignment.
LBCC decided to discontinue some trade programs such as auto-mechanics and carpentry.
Students now have the option to get a degrees in: automotive technology, advance technology, welding, advance manufacturing, engineering technology, and construction technology.
The department is also offering an updated version of the electrical technology degree.
Department officials presented updates and reasons for the new curriculum to the LBCC District Board of Trustees meeting on Nov. 13.
As described in their powerpoint presentation, the reasons for the new curriculum is to improve success and completion rates, increase the full-time equivalents, and prepare students for the workforce.
In light of the of the new state funding formula, Carbonaro and Pagan believe the department curriculum change will help students complete their program in a reasonable time frame.
“Completions, degrees, certificates and employment. Those variables factor into the equation of us offering this revamped curriculum. We wanna be able to provide an opportunity for our students to come here, have a great experience, getting out of here in a reasonable amount of time,” Pagan said.
Professors are aware of the revamp and have taken the responsibility to let their students know about the upcoming changes in the department.
Professor Damon Skinner shared how great it feels to have some trades and industrial technology programs recognized as degrees, not just as certificates of accomplishment, and how advantageous this will be for students as some had to see themselves going to other colleges in order to get a degree in trades.
“Since the trades program has been shutdown in the spring (semester) of 2013, there’s been a lot of students who pretty much had to go to other colleges,” Skinner said. “Long Beach students had to go to Compton College, El Camino or Cerritos College to get the hand skills necessary to go out and get a high-paying starting job and by being able to bring them back in-house with the new programs starting fall 2019, students will see themselves getting more opportunities here.”
Skinner shared how offering an associates degree option for the programs can increase the opportunities of getting a high-paying job, by saying that obtaining an associates degree can raise the chances of going from a $12 an hour job, an outcome a certificate of accomplishment can get, to a $20 an hour job.
Students in the trades program are prepared for the big step. Andy Gonzales is waiting to complete an associates degree in metal fabrication and enroll in the new welding technology associates program next year.
“It will be a great accomplishment when that happens. You can now say that welding is your career rather than just a vocation. It’s an excellent move for the majority of students in the trades programs. I don’t know how to say it but, it will just make you feel prideful,” Gonzales said.
The department and faculty also are creating “student- friendly” class schedules. Most classes will be offered when majority of students are on campus.
Carbonaro and Pagan plan to spread the word about this new department curriculum by doing a series of interviews and setting up a new website to inform students.
The departments are located at LAC and PCC. The department at LAC is located in buildings T, M, F and the Culinary Arts building and at PCC they are located in buildings AA, DD, MM, JJ, and II.
Some conservatives students on campus have expressed praise for the way Long Beach City College is accepting of different ideologies in the classroom at a time when the country is in a political turmoil.
Members of Turning Point USA, the LBCC chapter, value the interaction professors on campus allow them to have when challenging different viewpoints.
Turning Point USA is a conservative student organization founded by Charlie Kirk, and best known for their “Professor Watchlist” during the Trump election. Turning Point USA has over 350 chapters across the nation’s campuses including CSULB and LBCC.
“When it comes to a lot of education in our country, the left has taken over, and they have their own narrative; but here free thought is promoted, and this (campus) is a really good place to start out,” said George McCullough, a member of the LBCC chapter.
According to McCullough, LBCC is one of the best places for promoting free thought and producing free thinkers.
“We have a lot of professors here that are interested in critical thinking, and in order to be a critical thinker, you have to look at all sides of a viewpoint. It’s very refreshing; I know that it doesn’t happen in four-year colleges; even when I went in the 70’s it didn’t happen and it’s even worse now,” McCullough said.
Members of the chapter collectively agreed that having a diversity of ages, races, religions, and experience play a large part in why the reaction to conservatives on campus is different at a community college compared to a four-year institution.
“The experience level at a community college is a lot different than at a university. There, it’s generally younger people from similar backgrounds who have only been in school their whole lives, but here you have people that have transferred from straight out of high school or you have people returning who have a lot more life experience,” said Daniel McCullough, president of Turning Point USA LBCC chapter, (not related to George McCullough).
Although some conservatives on campus feel the institution does a good job of tolerance of different ideas, Donald Douglas, political science and conservative professor, has observed and heard from students in his classroom, that they may not share their true beliefs.
“A lot of the students that I have seen throughout the classroom that lean more toward the conservative side might self censor and not speak their true feelings that often because they feel like they will be treated badly by other students or be called names like racist,” said Douglas.
Daniel McCullough explained that by bringing a diversity of speakers it could challenge people’s ideas they have on political topics.
“Every single campus should advocate for different viewpoints, even if someone finds them heinous; you don’t have to like them but you should always hear another viewpoint if for no other reason, but to understand them and understand why you dislike them,” said Daniel McCullough. “We need to bring liberal speakers, conservative speakers, and moderate speakers; any of them, it’s always a learning experience.”
However, Douglas and some members of the LBCC chapter believe if the guest speaker brought on campus was someone of a high profile such as Milo Yiannopoulos and Ben Shapiro, LBCC could have the same national negative reaction that could result in protests.
“Everyone is labeled, you have to be tolerant and you have to be progressive, and if you are not, it’s not that they just disagree with you; now you are a bad person,” said Douglas.
Long Beach City College performing arts department will host an event called “Ring in the Holidays!” tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Long Beach VA, Egg auditorium where Wind Ensemble and Evening Wind Symphony will perform.
The musical event, whose purpose is bring the spirit of the holidays to LBCC,
will offer free parking and admission to everyone who wants to attend.
Brian Hamilton and Gary Thomas Scott will be the bands’ directors to lead and guide both the Wind Ensemble and Evening Wind Symphony during these bands’ performances.
“This is our annual holiday concert for the bands that we have here so we have two bands at the college which consists of music majors and non-music majors, but traditional students and then we have our Evening Wind Symphony,” Hamilton said.
The holiday event has been around for at least 30 years and happens annually.
Attendees will get to feel the spirit of Christmas season through the musical performance featuring both bands in the music department, as they plan to play traditional Christmas songs.
“There will be traditional Christmas songs and general public will recognize it,” Hamilton said.
Both bands will play a total of 12-14 songs during the holiday event.
Wind Ensemble will have about 55 students in it and the Evening Wind Symphony will have around 45 students participating.
Concert attendees will not only get to show their support to LBCC students, but they will also have fun simultaneously during the students’ performances through music.
“I think they’ll enjoy it a lot because we have like a Christmas song that we’re doing and like familiar songs that people are gonna recognize,” said 20-year-old music major Alyssa Langford.
The holiday concert will include the suite of old American dances in addition to Holiday songs.
“We’re playing the suite of old American dances and that’s like an American classic as far as you know like contemporary or classical music goes. It’s an American classic. There’s so much going on that you’ll enjoy,” 22-year-old music student Kyra Harris said.
Due to a construction happening on campus, the event is held in the VA Long Beach Healthcare system building instead of the auditorium so it’s not only students from LBCC who get to watch the bands play but employees as well.
Attendees are advised to bring their umbrella and wear a jacket due to a strong possibility that it might rain during the Wednesday evening.
Despite Long Beach City College forward De’Brianna Hampton scoring 20 points against Palomar College on Tuesday, the Vikings were defeated 74-69.
The Vikings record dropped to 3-4, while the Comets rose to 7-1.
Head coach Michael Anderson was worried about some of his players not executing through every possession, by being more aggressive in the paint.
“We had a lot of opportunities in the game that our best players gave, but we couldn’t execute them and we need to fix them if we want to win more,” Anderson said.
However, with the Vikings being up the second and third quarter, the Comets came into the fourth quarter wanting to finish strong.
No injuries were reported during the game, and 16 fouls were called for LBCC and 20 for Palomar.
The Vikings guard Kaylin Brown, who was the top scorer last game, did not have many scoring opportunities this time around. Brown played 37 minutes and put up 12 points and 4 assist.
“I think I shot the ball well. I was also patient as the PG on offense while being pressed. Defensively I was in the right spots, i knew where the shooter was and I was also in help side defense two passes away.”
Comets guard/forward Sara Ahmadpour, who was difficult for the Vikings to defend, scored 18 points.
The Vikings forward Kiara Lewis was also having trouble during the game, she played for 10 minutes but was only able to put up 2 points and 2 steals.
The Vikings Guard Taja Ward looks forward to the next game and hopes she will get more court time as she played 21 minutes and only put up 1 point and 1 assist.
“I’m having difficulty in getting boards (rebounds) but I know my team can always play good so I have hope for them,” Ward said.
The Vikings prepare to play at LA Valley on Dec. 7 at 5 p.m.
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